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Competition for water is increasing in Central Asia at an alarming rate, adding tension to what is already an uneasy region.

Six months after the installation of the transition government, the promises of peace and reconciliation of the Arusha accords have not materialised. The ceasefire negotiations in South Africa, between the government and the various rebel factions, have not produced a single concrete result.

For the first time since the last UN mission left the country in 1995, there is considerable international interest in Somalia, centred on the possibility that the country may become part of the global war against terrorism.

This presidential election (first round on 26 May 2002; second round, if needed, on 16 June) will be crucial for the future of Colombia’s democracy and its struggle against insurgents and paramilitaries, drugs and widespread poverty.

The U.S. Congress will soon debate a proposal for funding to train an Indonesian military unit to deal with troubled areas within the country.

The immensity of the task of rebuilding Afghanistan into something resembling a coherent state cannot be over-estimated.

After seven weeks of negotiations at Sun City, a partial agreement was reached on 19 April 2002 between Jean-Pierre Bemba’s MLC (Mouvement pour la libération du Congo) and the government of Joseph Kabila.

Despite more than six years of increasingly intrusive reforms carried out at the behest of the UN Mission in Bosnia & Herzegovina (UNMIBH), the local police cannot yet be counted upon to enforce the law.

As East Timor moves toward independence on 20 May 2002, trials are proceeding in Jakarta against Indonesian army and police officers and civilian officials accused of serious human rights violations in connection with the 1999 violence there.